


i think of you (rewind)

by peachyun



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Barista Taeyong, Fluff, M/M, it's basically a drabble, partially a social media au, slight crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-13 00:33:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16882242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peachyun/pseuds/peachyun
Summary: “One pinkity drinkity, please.”





	i think of you (rewind)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [peachyong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/peachyong/gifts).



> i wrote this back in august as a birthday present and didn't really think about publishing it welp  
> it's the pinkity drinkity story that got big on twitter, just in a jaeyong form. there'll be screenshots!
> 
> (title from bts' "coffee")
> 
> please enjoy!

The constant clutter and pangs would have gotten on anyone’s nerves by now but Taeyong had the patience of a saint. He knew what he was signing for when he took the job of a barista at a local Starbucks; serving hot beverages, long queues, whiny teenagers, basic girls trying to check him out and hit on him shamelessly. Really, he was beyond that, he knew how to react, knew how to not let it show how tired he was. Hell, technically he wasn’t even allowed to show if he was uncomfortable with lame pickup lines or coffee orders so bizarre he had to ask to repeat them, even if they were _begging_ to be mocked. Taeyong was a master of the poker face, an art he’s been learning for a long time, but that of course didn’t mean he never got the urge to roll his eyes, or throw something at the wall, or even sit down on the floor and start screaming bloody murder out of frustration.

Today was a busy day. The academic year has recently started and quite a few students chose Taeyong’s working place as their meetup location for study dates or lonely revisions, systematic from the very beginning. The 23 year old was moving swiftly between the counter and the coffee machine, making and delivering coffee for the customers. He was slowly breaking a sweat and needed a breather but knew that soon Doyoung, who was taking orders, would switch with him so he could serve the cash register instead. It was rather hot outside and the ac was working slowly, blowing cold air on their faces and making Taeyong worried he was going to have facial nerves problems in a foreseeable future.

“Hyung, take over!” Doyoung called, taking a recently picked up cup to make the coffee himself. Taeyong heaved a sigh and headed to the counter, straightening his apron as he went. He plastered a smile on his face and stood straighter, ready to serve the customers with the most (fake) friendly expression he could muster.

Unfortunately, from the next few clients they received no simple orders. Seemed like everyone wanted something doubled, something added, something extracted, something sweet pumped in, triple the chocolate, less calories. Taeyong was really glad he was the one writing the somehow complicated orders down instead of making the coffee but at the same time he felt really bad for Doyoung who had to comprehend his scribbles and do his best at making the orders. They just had to wait for further into the year, so the energy of their customers would drop and drop as the classes would get more difficult day by day.

Taeyong was fumbling with the cups which were almost toppling over from how he hurriedly brought them from the back room when next customer approached him, so he let out the usual “Hello, what’s your order?” with only a brief look towards the next in line. His hands were slowly starting to shake from stress and it was consuming his train of thoughts. That’s when he heard a deep, smooth voice.

“One _pinkity drinkity_ , please.”

At that Taeyong froze completely and raised his eyes, blinking a few times, completely baffled. His entire attention diverted from the cups, from his hands, all onto the customer standing in front of him.

The young man on the other side of the counter was giving him a soft smile, which was bringing out his dimples to the daylight. Chocolate brown hair fell softly on his forehead, the tips touching the frames of his golden specs. He was wearing a beige graphic t-shirt and a black laptop bag on his shoulder. His voice was dreamy but the words he spoke…

“Uh,” Taeyong stuttered, hand with a pen frozen mid-air above the cup he was holding. “A what?”

The guy blinked, somehow short circuiting, and then inhaled loudly, looking like a deer caught in the headlights when the realisation of what he said dawned upon him. “Uhh… a strawberry acai with coconut milk? Please?”

Taeyong squinted at the customer, slightly cocking his head to the side to give him a better look at the guy and maybe to seem a bit menacing. _Maybe_.  “A pink drink? Was that what you called it? No, that’s wasn’t it.. Man, what did you call it?” He asked, amusement slipping into his tone.

The brown-haired customer looked like he wanted to merge with the floor and disappear. He casted his eyes down, his red ears almost glowing with neon embarrassment as he was basically sweating on the spot.

“Nevermind… I remembered I have to be somewhere else. Have a nice day.”

And with that, the beige t-shirt swiftly fled the scene, leaving amused Taeyong hanging.

 

❣

 

A few days passed since the incident before Taeyong saw the guy again. He almost forgot about the whole thing. And he’d barely even recognized him if it wasn’t for the _voice_.

It was a late evening, only a few people inside the cafe. The weather got a bit chillier, Taeyong was for a change glad for the heat the coffee machine produced. A man walked in, head hang low, cell phone almost glued to his nose and an oversized pink hood covering his hair. The strings from his hoodie were hanging unevenly and Taeyong felt an itch in his hands to even them out. He knew better than to do that though, obviously.

When the guy approached the counter he was still not done with typing something on his phone, so Taeyong spoke up first, just hoping not to startle him. “Good evening, what can we do for you?”

“Two iced americanos to go, please.”

The barista froze for a second, not entirely sure if he was hearing correctly, but then a huge grin made its way onto his face. Oh, he was certain. “No _pinky drinky_ this time?”

The hoodie guy almost got a whiplash from how fast he looked up. _It was definitely him_ , the Taeyong thought triumphantly to himself, smiling even wider at the newcomer.

Seeing how the customer was at a loss of words, Taeyong decided to spare him. “Sorry, I’m just kidding. Your americanos will be ready in a few. Would you like something else?”

The brunet exhaled slowly, tension easing off his shoulders, but still seemingly unsure of his stance in the situation. Boy, wasn’t he awkward. “No, that would be all.”

“Okay, two iced americanos to go. Can I get your name?”

“Jaehyun.”

Taeyong smiled. “Coming right away, Jaehyun.” He announced cheerfully, writing down the guy’s name with a little smiley face right next to it on one of the cups he prepared.

 

❣

 

Taeyong exhaled through his nose, scrolling through his phone. His eyelids felt heavy, like they were carrying countless grains of sand and he just wanted to finally close them and let his body relax. He couldn’t do that, though; there was still an hour to the closing time and the boss would shoot him on the spot if he took a nap while being solo at the workplace.

It was the slowest of times, no one really needed a coffee at 9pm and Taeyong would feel bad if he were to sell one of the stale cookies they still got displayed, that have been there for hours now. The lights above him hummed softly, almost lulling him to sleep, but so far he kept being strong.

With the keys to the local already in his back pocket Taeyong mindlessly scrolled through his Twitter feed. Being a perceptive barista who never shied away from sharing his thoughts and observations via tweets, he has gained quite a following on his stan slash local account. Technically, he was supposed to only fangirl over Red Velvet, Monsta X and BoA, but he just had _too much_ to talk about, and what he had was always _juicy and full of tea_ as they said. If we added the fact that he was a fan _boy_ , we could understand why’d so many people followed him.

His recent hit tweet that blew up was the one about his encounter with a certain chocolate haired individual. Taeyong planned a little storytime thread but decided to keep it more vague and just tweeted about the event in one tweet, leaving the guy’s name out of it for some reason. Literal _hundreds of people_ found the story cute and interesting, wanting to know more about the cute, quirky guy who ordered a _pinkity drinkity_ (yes, he remembered the name at last. Or rather, Ten corrected him, having heard the expression before). They all rooted for Taeyong and sympathized with his confusion about the order.

The twitter attention was all fine and dandy, feeding his need of attention, however… The thing was, Jaehyun hasn’t come back after Taeyong learned his name. It’s been over a month, countless people flooding in and out of the Starbucks and none of them sported that pretty dimpled smile or spoke in any way as dreamy as Jaehyun did. The 23 year old has met him only twice, yes, but got so intrigued by him the vague encounters weren’t enough for his curiosity. He was hooked on this mysterious cutie and wanted to see him more.

Numerous times did he consider tweeting out about wanting to find the guy. Many people in his followers probably studied or lived nearby and there was a slight chance someone knew Jaehyun. However, Taeyong remained unsure. He wasn’t _that_ keen on sharing his workplace’s address, neither did he want to expose more about the _pinkity drinkity_ guy his followers absolutely loved. It left him in a place between, waging on whether to jump the gun or just wait and in time, forget about everything.

A quiet buzz brought him back to the current situation, the phone is his hand vibrating with an incoming message. Taeyong held a yawn and swiped the text open.

 

_**TENNETH:** check your mentions you fool_

 

Confused, Taeyong scoffed before typing back.

 

_**TY:** don’t tell me how to live my life lol _

 

_**TENNETH:** BITCH _

_**TENNETH:** i’m serious tho _

_**TENNETH:** check. your. mentions. _

Taeyong sighed, opening up the bird app.

Ever since his followers surpassed 5,000 he stopped checking his mentions from people he wasn’t following. He couldn’t handle the spam, no matter how needy he was, the attention sometimes got too much and made him insecure. For his own good he just stuck to those trusted whom he followed, sometimes checking his indirects, and that was about it.

Kind of unsure, Taeyong went into his notifications and switched to the mentions section.

To say it was flooded would be an understatement.

When he went out of the initial shock, Taeyong started scrolling down and soon realised that most of the notifications were from people tagging him in a tweet, either in the replies or by quoting it. Now really curious, Taeyong opened the tweet.

 

  
He recognized the user, it was one of his followers that made a lot of entertaining tweets and had one of those _skinny ratios_. They haven’t really talked outside of the timeline but he’s been mutually following each other with this Miyeon girl for some time now.

The tweet by Miyeon consisted of two screenshots. One of them was something Taeyong was familiar with - his own tweet about the _pinkity drinkity_ that he posted over a month ago. The second tweet, however… It mentioned the funny drink name, too, and when Taeyong read its entirety he felt his eyes getting owl-sized and his jaw slacking on its own.  


“Oh, God,” Taeyong breathed out, running a hand through his hair. “Jaehyun’s on stan twitter, too?” All of sudden he felt lightheaded, at the same time the blood fled away from his head and made his cheeks red and warm, somehow.

For a calm and collected man like him it was a lot to take in. He took a breath and shook his head. He was losing it over something really small and coincidental. He shouldn’t be letting this all get to his head while it was just a hunch, no certainty that he had Jaehyun’s twitter address in his palms, after a _freaking_ month. It might have been anyone.

So Taeyong went into the account to investigate and find the answer… and he got it.  


_Damn, Miyeon's a genius_. Taeyong let out a small laugh, not really comprehending the entire situation. It was so bizarre! Maybe he was just extremely tired because of the late hour, but he felt and heard his heart beating loudly.

Wow. He found his Mister Mysterious. And it seemed it wasn’t the end, when Twitter notified him that the account he was currently on - _KlHVUN, kihyun’s walnut chin_ , JAEHYUN - has just added a new tweet.  


Taeyong almost dropped his phone with the power of the yelp he let out. He made sure no one heard him - thankfully, he was alone - and got his attention back to his phone.

Jaehyun was seeing the same thing he was seeing. At the same time. Well damn!

With trembling hands and bottom lip tucked between his teeth, Taeyong opted to participate as well. He typed his response and resisted the urge to put his phone down, go to the back room and yell into the empty coffee bean cans.  


He anticipated. Starbucks around completely forgotten, the security walking by the door from time to time and giving him a dirty look for not paying attention - be damned. He felt silly and absurd, but couldn’t stop the glee and shiver of anticipation taking over him.

 _Buzzz_.  


❣

“One _pinkity drinkity_ , please.”

The barista had the most gorgeous smile Jaehyun had ever seen, but really, he knew it long ago.

When he moved away from the counter - without paying for his coffee, as promised - Jaehyun could still feel the eyes of the pink-haired guy on him. He could still see his smile blooming even without looking at it, as if said smile was painted on the insides on his eyelids.

It was a really beautiful smile. Jaehyun would lie if he said he didn’t think about it from time to time, in between his hectic schedule in college and the part time job at a store. It was a fairly long walk from there to the Starbucks where he blatantly ordered a strawberry acai drink a month ago. The gorgeous smile and beauty of its owner made Jaehyun’s cheeks flame up during their first encounter already. His reaction could have easily passed as pure embarrassment without any crushes involved, but he knew better than that.

Oh, it wasn’t the first time he’s seen TY around. He saw him a few times before, usually getting out of his apron before he could serve Jaehyun. A shame, really - Jaehyun wanted to get to know him better. To see that smile up close and be worthy of making it appear. He was too shy to just walk up and start a conversation so he hoped that one day the fate would just put them on the two sides of the counter so he could finally muster up the strenght to get the attention of that beautiful barista.

And, well, he got that, but not exactly in the smooth and charming way he hoped for. To think their first encounter would end with TY laughing at him was, _ah_ , very discouraging to say the least. Jaehyun felt like a complete fool. The barista had enough reasons to think Jaehyun was avoiding him after because of that, which was very far from the truth. He wanted to visit, he wanted to see his crush as often as he could, make a better impression to erase that small slip up… he just was unable to. Was too busy, just his luck. Too busy to let his little crush flourish...

… Up until the moment where TY himself asked him on Twitter to come by. Because their mutual noticed they might have been talking about each other, completely unaware of the fact. Really, at this point Jaehyun was ready to drop everything and just drive there to see the barista again.

They had a lot to discuss, to find out, to discover about each other, to explain; Jaehyun thought to himself as he received his coffee from another barista who was giving him a rather funny look. The phone number and hearts on the cup probably peaked his curiosity, Jaehyun couldn’t really blame him.

He sat at one of the tables, his phone with Twitter opened right next to his coffee. Jaehyun once again checked in the DMs the time TY was finishing his shift to calculate how much time left he had before the man would join him. Damn, he really needed to ask for his actual name to stop calling him TY and _the_ _beautiful barista_ in his mind.

 _Well_ , he thought to himself, the cup with his pink drink gracing his smiling lips, _now I can. Now I have his time._

**Author's Note:**

> happy angie year yeoreobuns  
> [twt](https://twitter.com/kihyeonssi)


End file.
